By Regina Holbert

After a break for the holidays, the Monday Book Club will begin 2007 with “The Moonstone” by Wilkie Collins. Collins’ 1871 novel is the first book in the club’s yearlong look at British fiction titled “Mysteries, Spies and Murder Most Foul.”

The plot is built around the theft of a fabulous Indian gem called the Moonstone. The story, at times told by several different narrators, includes all the ingredients for a traditional mystery: a manor house in the English countryside complete with a fetching heroine and an assortment of suspicious and outspoken servants, a hero with amnesia, an exotic background in British colonial India and a wide cast of suspects.

Collins

Collins, who is considered by many to be the father of the modern detective story, wrote several novels and short stories. His decades-long friendship with Charles Dickens has also been the subject of much study by literary scholars. Several Web sites offer a wealth of background information on Collins, including downloads of “The Moonstone” text. For more information, visit www.wilkiecollins.com and www.victorianweb.org.

Thanks to Project Gutenberg, the entire text of this classic is available free of charge online, here.

Carol Campbell will lead a discussion of “The Moonstone” at 6 p.m. Jan. 29 at Taylor Books, 221 Capitol St.